I literally cried when I watched Tsai’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn for the first time. With no doubt, this is one of the best films in the 21st century. Tsai is also one of my favorite auteurs. I have watched more than five of his works, including his most recent work Days. As I just can’t love this film more, this discussion post will mainly reflect on some issues from the perspective of the film, with brief discussion on the readings (mainly about Galt/Schoonover).
Contrast, or juxtaposition, is one significant theme for this film. As Galt and Schoonover argues the queer cinema as the dynamic proves of “worlding,” Goodbye, Dragon Inn depicts the collision between two worlds, the cinematic world (Hu’s Dragon Inn) and the reality (“normative world”). As Prof. Redrobe’s lecture discusses, Hu’s Dragon Inn (1967) was very popular at its time, receiving many recognitions and love from the audiences and other filmmakers. Therefore, it could represent a kind of collective memories, or the mainstream culture symbol reached by nearly consensus. This glorious past is revived at the beginning of Goodbye, Dragon Inn as well, when the theater is packed with audiences. Each viewer is appreciating Hu’s masterpiece quietly, sitting properly. However, after Hu’s name appears on the screen at the end of the credits, Tsai cuts to the desolate entrance of Fu He theater (福和大戏院). In this theater, which is also the main stage for this film, there are only several audiences. The people become the “strangers,” or the lost. They are the marginalized people who are also “out of date”: the lame female ticket seller, the Japanese man seeking a homosexual relationship, and the two forgotten cast from Hu’s Dragon Inn (Chun Shih, and Tien Miao). Therefore, the “haunted theatre” in this film forms a great contrast against the theater depicted in the very beginning. This space, the Fu He theater, witnesses the condensation of the past (the dirty and worn seats, the scraped walls). These marginalized people, with no specific aims or destinations, wander in this space, seemingly “summoned” by the re-screening of Hu’s Dragon Inn, a film premiered around forty years ago. The posters in the corridor of the theater drag the audiences back to its contemporary. (Peng Brother’s The Eye, and Je-yong Lee’s The Affair) Therefore, it creates the collision between two “worlds.”
As Galt and Schoonover suggests, Tsai’s film might function as the opposition against the Western dominant stereotype on queer cinema, which frequently involve the direct depictions of sexual acts “endorsing a Western cultural privileging of visibility and publicness.” (12) As Ma also points out, the sexuality and the sexual behaviors are always blurred and ambiguous in Tsai’s films, together with the identity. The audiences do not know that the man is Japanese until the later half of the film. Although he is actively seeking for some seemingly homosexual relationships with other man, there is no depiction of any direct touching or hugging. The cigarette replaces the genital organ, representing the phallic meaning when the Japanese man is seeking another man to “light” it. For most of times, the communication is silent, through their eye contacts or some slight body movements. This unsatisfied sexual desire of the queer people depicted in ambiguity frequently appears in Tsai’s films. In his work Vive L'Amour (1994), the homosexual, played by Kang-sheng Lee, could only lie under the bed, and masturbate when his beloved straight man has sex with another woman. Ma also uses the image of the “stolen kiss” of the next morning from that film in her essay as well.
"我很爱看电影,近十几年来,我所看的大部分电影都让我有一种不太舒服的感觉,好像我在阅读,一个无形的手在帮我翻页,被他操控了90分钟,看完一部电影我才能走出来,我不喜欢这种电影。可是看你的电影,突然间让我自由了,因为你的镜头很长,所以我看到了你要拍的东西,我真的看到了,然后我听到了,因为我有时间听,然后我升起了感觉,再升起了我的思考。"
(本人未看过此部影片,为了分享这段话才给的评星等级,无参考价值)
声音取代画面成了表达的主要方式,表达的对象是时间,在空间里蕴含放大又被挤压的时间。电影和观众的双重死亡,那一幅静止的凝视荧幕的座位画面大概是一种祭奠。狭窄过道里的身体接触、望着屏幕里的自己落泪、犹豫后仍取回了半个寿桃,无不是深深的绝望。就算有些光明,也仍然不免错过。
时间的不匀,在本片20分钟处,《龙门客栈》是刚好放到17分钟左右,也就是说本片时间和《龙门客栈》处于相差不大的状态。但在本片30分钟时陈湘琪看银幕的时候,《龙门客栈》已经放到1小时。再到后来《龙门客栈》在石隽流泪之后结束。本片用了一小时放完了《龙门客栈》。加速的影中影。而现实被拖慢了。那么有没有现实和电影完整同步的时候呢?答案是肯定的,就是在陈湘琪望向银幕的时候,类似正反打的剪辑突出了“同时性”。只有在观看电影的时候,我们的时间才和电影同步。
感受到了强势意图的存在,但没看到明确可解的轨迹或多么不明觉厉的执行。蔡明亮总让我分不清他的有趣时刻到底是真有趣,还是靠更多无趣衬托而出的有趣。这也挺厉害的。
无疑是蔡明亮最好的作品,用空间表达时间的永恒,电影与现实相交织,寂寞与自由共存。
“这剧院有鬼”当听到这句话的时候,才突然想起来,电影进行了一半,之前好象连一句台词都没有。老歌响起来时的感觉还不错,可以压成短片。
相聚有时,电影不散
福和大戏院就是《你那边几点》中小康偷钟的那个~应该是从这部开始,蔡明亮发展出后期标志性的片段式影像,片段之间和片段内部都“无事发生”,没有对白、情节及任何的因果律,对叙事的拒斥和长镜头的痴迷都抵达了华语电影前所未有的激烈程度,唯一被捕捉到的是无可名状的情态和从这些情态影像中穿逸而出的时间性本身。
电影院放映着《龙门客栈》,跌宕起伏的情节对照影片人物生活的死水一潭,影院观众观看电影,而孤独青年观看观看电影的人,观看与被看的传递与循环让他们皆甘愿自我迷失,逃离现实而隐匿“桃花源”-电影院中,幻想永不散场。如果用一句通俗的话评价一下本片,那就是“影片全程都是尿点”。
绝了!蔡明亮这次一手打造出互相独立却彼此营生的空间感,和一种以屏幕之内观察荧幕之外的新奇视角,潮湿邋遢的阴影世界却自有寒气和感动;对电影而言,我们都是闯入者,所以彼此小心翼翼地试探,最后慌慌张张地离开,空留一份「对影成三人」的心照不宣;无心,自是不爱,不见,终得不散。
空洞戏院,寂寞人类。身影茕茕,回响跫跫。残像摇摇,光线沉沉。破败后台,孤魂游荡。鬼不在此,欲想猎艳。电影有尽,时间无涯。客栈关张,戏院熄灯。瓢泼大雨,霓虹耀眼。旧伞挡风,沿途无人。周身湿冷,今夜无眠。
本片为我们展示了电影院几种不文明行为,比如大声吃东西,脚搭前排座椅靠背。好了不开玩笑。有点不知如何评价。《龙门客栈》中的广阔天地和电影院、厕所、仓库、走廊等封闭空间形成空间的对照,老演员观看年轻的自己又是一组时间的对照。开灯散场空无一人,汇聚在光影交错两个小时里的人与行动如流水般四散而去,放映的电影在这一意义上不仅是被观看的对象,反而“生产”了放映员、跛脚清洁工和观众等。这大概是一则关于电影的寓言。戏院不散场,胶片永不眠。
天下没有不散的宴席,反之而行固然可嘉,但导演的创新力似乎业已耗尽,还是如<青少年哪吒>般地眷恋于机器求签,还是如<洞>和<天桥不见了>般地钟爱引用老歌,还是一成不变地长镜头和静止画面,本片在片中和片外都预示了台湾电影的衰败..
到了现在,自己已经不太怕一部电影“沉闷”,这部电影很丰富,空镜,长镜头,定格镜头,在大量空余时间里,我们可以认真听,也可以好好想。拍《不散》的时候,他开始厌倦电影,所以这部电影到底是一部什么呢?除了对胡金铨的表白,是一部对电影的赞歌吗?大概不是。这更多是一种审视,一种回望,没有人和他对话,大家关注的东西和他都不一样。所以他才把镜头大量的给“观众”,然后我们发现,这些观众,基本没有在好好看电影,和他想说的事情一样。每个人有每个人的故事,只是这些人的故事里,几乎不包括电影。更多的,我们不关注电影本身,而是注视这些人和他们可能的故事。这一次,放映厅的长镜头出现的时候,我尤其认真,因为我也在想,除了想电影里的观众,也想我身边的,也想我自己。然后我觉得,这个长镜头还是太短了。
“现在都没人看电影了,也没人记得我们”,确实好像自己小时候去过的影院啊,第一次看蔡明亮,慢到这地步了感觉竟然有点意思。。
我想起月下,我想起花前,多少的往事留在我心田,一半是辛酸,一半是甜蜜,一年又一年长叫我留恋,留恋,留恋……电影会散场的,人也终会离你而去。
全片共十句对白,一如既往的湿。疏离感是蔡明亮电影里最可贵的东西,这次再加上老电影院的情怀简直把我迷死了。让我想到春城剧院,很破旧,但每次去都只有我和放映员两个人,他们甚至会因为我要求而改变放映场次。四年后,蔡明亮又为戛纳60周年拍了一部老影院情怀的短片《是梦》,堪称完美。
爱极了电影所以要模糊(扩大)电影的边界是蔡明亮最珍贵的东西。我吃东西的时候想着你,所以跛着脚爬上一段又一段楼梯,只为把自己的吃食小心翼翼分一半给你,放在你的方便面上,但是我再去的时候,你不在,也没有吃,我只有坐在放满了你的烟蒂的烟灰缸前发呆...猜到放映员一定是小康,我心都要化了...
太沉闷以至于我无法忍受
蔡明亮的电影,永远都能予人无法言喻的鲜活体验。以[龙门客栈]贯穿大部,戏中戏的音轨常常萦绕于耳,由此延拓出的画外空间(及其历史厚度、影迷情愫)与戏院荒芜颓败的氛围及孤独郁结的角色叠糅,唯有叹惋。跛脚的售票员始终艰难而不懈地四处巡行,独木难支。窗外雨声淅沥,室内漏雨不断,蔡导钟情的“水”意象与末日之息又一次浸染了我的内心。及至45分钟,才出现了第一句台词——“你知道这戏院有鬼吗?” 随后,影厅里女人隐没到镜头之外,旋即,我们与日本男子一道观望到空荡阴暗的周边,刹那间,复闻嗑瓜子声,尽管我们暗自知晓这并非鬼片,仍旧不寒而栗……部分场景形如静态照片,尤其是女售票员打扫完影厅后出画、且瘸行脚步声淡弱后的两分钟时间,一切都变得凝固静穆,恍如永恒。两位主演的重聚,仿佛送别一个时代与文化空间。(9.0/10)
电影区别于其他艺术的最大优势,视觉化的时间。有人在电影《不散》中以《龙门客栈》为标尺,而我们在生活中,以电影为生活时间流动的标尺。片尾的介入。十分亦不足够